Sample Candidate Writing Responses and Examiner Comments
Both the Academic and General Training
Writing Modules consist of two tasks, Task 1and Task 2. Each task is assessedindependently. The assessment of Task 2
carries more weight in marking than Task 1.

logical sequencing, while cohesion refers to thevaried and appropriate use of cohesive devices(e.g. logical connectors, conjunctions andpronouns) to assist in making clear therelationships between and within sentences.

Detailed performance descriptors have beendeveloped which describe written
performance at the 9 IELTS bands. These
descriptors apply to both the Academic andGeneral Training Modules.

Lexical Resource

Task 1 responses are assessed on thefollowing criteria:• Task Achievement• Coherence and Cohesion

This criterion refers to the range ofvocabulary the candidate has used and theaccuracy and appropriacy of that use interms of the specific task.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
This criterion refers to the range andaccurate use of the candidate’s
grammatical resource within thecandidate’s writing at sentence level.

• Lexical Resource• Grammatical Range and Accuracy

Task 2
Task Response

Task 2 responses are assessed on thefollowing criteria:• Task Response• Coherence and Cohesion• Lexical Resource• Grammatical Range and Accuracy

Both the Academic and General Training
Writing Task 2 require the candidates toformulate and develop a position in relation
to a given prompt in the form of a question
or statement, using a minimum of 250
words. Ideas should be supported byevidence, and examples may be drawn
from a candidates’ own experience.

Candidates should note that responses will bepenalised if they are a) partly or wholly
plagiarised, b) not written as full, connected
text (e.g. using bullet points in any part of theresponse, or note form, is not appropriate).

The other criteria for Task 2 are the same asfor Task 1 (Coherence and Cohesion, Lexical
Resource, Grammatical Range andAccuracy).

Task 1

Writing responses are marked by trained andcertificated IELTS examiners.

Task Achievement
This criterion assesses how fully,
appropriately, accurately and relevantly theresponse fulfils the requirements set out inthe task, using the minimum of 150 words.
Task 1 Academic is a writing task which has adefined input and a largely predictable output.
It is basically an information-transfer task
which relates narrowly to the factual content
of a diagram, graph, table, chart, map orother visual input, not to speculative
explanations that lie outside the given data.
Coherence and Cohesion
This criterion is concerned with the overallorganisation and logical development of themessage: how the response organises andlinks information, ideas and language.
Coherence refers to the linking of ideas throughScores may be reported as whole bands or halfbands.
Below you will find candidates’ responses tothe two tasks in the sample Academic Writing
test. There are two responses for each task.
Each response has been awarded a bandscore and is accompanied by an examinercomment on the candidate’s performance forthat task.
The examiners’ guidelines for marking theWriting scripts are very detailed. Thereare many different ways a candidate mayachieve a particular band score. Thecandidates’ answers that follow should
not be regarded as definitive examples ofany particular band score.
Please refer to the publicly available
IELTS Writing Key Criteria on our website.

Sample Academic Writing Part 1
Candidate Response 1
The chart gives you information on how children travelled to and from school in the years
1990 and 2010. The modes of transport were by car, walking, cycling, walking and by bus
and by bus only.
A striking feature in this chart is that the number of children who travelled by car has
increased from 1990 to 2010. In 1990 the most number of trips per year by children were bywalking. However in 2010 it reduced to up to 6 million trips per year. The total number oftrips to school by cycling and walking and bus were approximately 6 million in 1990.
However the number of trips to school by cycling reduced to 2 million and the number of trips
to school by walking and bus reduced to about 3 million in 2010. There isn’t a significant
change to the number of trips to school by bus. In 1990 it was about 7 million and in 2010 itcame down to approximately 5 million.
In 1990 the amount of children who travelled to and from school by car was significantly
lower than the children who travelled by walking. In contrast in 2010 the number of children
who travelled to school by car increased and the number of children walking to school hasdecreased. In 2010 children travelled to school by bus more than they cycled to school.

Examiner comment
Band 6The key features which are selected are covered and clearly highlighted, but reporting is somewhat
mechanical and data is provided to support only some of the descriptions. There is a relevant
overview in the final paragraph, with a summary of the main changes. Information and ideas are
generally arranged coherently, though there is some repetition [number of trips]. Cohesive devices areused effectively and there is a clear progression overall.
The range of vocabulary is sufficient to allow some flexibility, with some less common items. For ahigher band, a wider range of vocabulary could be used, within the scope of the task. There is a mix ofsimple and complex sentence structures, used fairly accurately, but again, there is not a wide enoughvariety of structures to achieve a higher band.

Sample Academic Writing Part 1
Candidate Response 2
The statistice show the number of tripe mad by children in one country over the past to years
to travel to end from school using different modes of transport.
children walking (13 million) are the by far highset, while, the children use bus (7 million) area bit higher than the children use car in 1990. However, The children use car (11 million) in2010 significant higher than The children use bus (5 million) in 2010. In contrest, Thechildren walking (6 million) are Twice as high as the children use cycling (3 million) in 2010.
overall, At the end priod there were 12,000,000 children walking in 1990, 11,000,000
children use care in 2010 and 5,000,000 children use bus.

Examiner comment
Band 4This response does generally try to address the requirements of the task but the key features are notadequately covered. Limited detail is provided, for example, there is no reference to the ‘walking andbus’ categories. Information is presented, but it is difficult to identify organisation and there is no clear
progression within the response. There are some cohesive devices but these are mostly inaccurate.
The range of vocabulary is not minimally adequate for the task, it is basic and used repetitively. Thereis limited control over spelling, and errors cause confusion [tripe mad/trips made]. A limited range ofsentence forms is used and although some structures are produced accurately, errors are frequentand this does impede meaning.

Sample Academic Writing Part 2
Candidate Response 1
WRITING TASK 2
I completly disagree with the written statment. I believe that most of the people in the world
have more information about their health and also about how they can improve their healthy
conditions.
Nowadays, information about how harmful is to smoke for our bodies can be seen in many
packets of cigars. This is a clear example how things can change from our recent past.
There is a clear trend in the diminishing of smokers and if this continues it will have apositive impact in our health.
On the other hand, the alimentation habbits are changing all over the world and this canaffect people’s health. However every one can choose what to eat every day. Mostly
everybody, from developed societies, know the importance of having a healthy diet.
Advances such as the information showed in the menus of fast food restaurants will help
people to have a clever choice before they choose what to eat.
Another important issue that I would like to mention is how medicine is changing. There are
new discovers and treatments almost every week and that is an inequivoque sintom of how
things are changing in order to improve the world’s health.

Examiner comment
Band 5.5
A clear position is presented from the outset, supported by relevant ideas. These would require further
development to achieve a higher score. It is also useful to note, this response does not meet theminimum word count for Task 2 of 250 words, so there is room for further development. Information andideas are generally arranged coherently and there is a clear overall progression. Cohesive devices areused effectively, but paragraphing is not always logical.
A range of vocabulary is attempted, although there is a lack of precision in word choice and there aresome errors in spelling and word formation. There also appears to be some interference from the test
taker’s first language, e.g. ‘alimentation’, but these features do not make the answer difficult tounderstand. There is a mix of sentence forms, but the level of error is too high to achieve a higher bandscore.

Sample Academic Writing Part 2
Candidate Response 2
Recently, there have been a lot of discussions about health and whether it is going toimprove or not. In my opinion, I think that people will become unhealthier in the future thanthey are now.
There are many reasons that support the idea of people becoming unhealthy in the future.
Firstly, one reason is that of food. People tend to eat more fast food nowadays. They tend totreat themselves with sweets and chocolate whenever they want. This appears to bebecause people are busier now than they used to be. So, people don’t have a chance tocook or even learn the art of cookery. Also, having a lot of unhealthy food can lead to obesity
and it could be a serious issue in the future. Another reason is that technology is developing
everyday. Young people enjoy buying new gadgets and the latest devices. This has anegative impact on their health, especially when they enjoy video games. Spending longhours looking at a screen can lead to bad eyesight and obesity as well. Yet another reasonis that laziness is a big issue. Different forms of exercise might disappear in the future
because people don’t like sports. Also, people prefer spending most of their time on theinternet and the internet is growing every single day.
Other people might disagree and say that health will improve in the future. They believethat new sports and new ways to exercise will appear in the future. However, I don’t think it
can happen since the majority of people spend less time outdoors. Moreover, other people
believe that technology will try and help people improve their health. For example, there
have been some games released on the Wii console that makes people exercise but
technology is developing more in a negative way. For instance, many phone industries aredeveloping new applications everyday and today’s generation likes to follow every trend.
This prevents people to go outside to exercise. They like to spend more time on the internet
downloading new programmes or reading gossips about celebraties. This affects people’s
health badly.
In conclusion, I believe that people’s health is affected negatively by fast food, technology
and sports and it will be a problem in the future.

Examiner comment
Band 7.5
This is a strong response. A clear position is presented at the outset and some ideas are explored tosupport it. An alternative position is also considered but rejected. Ideas are logically organised andthere is a clear progression throughout the response. Cohesive devices are generally used flexibly,
but there is some overuse of sequencers in paragraph 2 [Firstly | So | Also | Yet]. Paragraphing isgenerally effective but could perhaps be used more appropriately by breaking down paragraphs 2and 3.
There is a wide range of vocabulary with good use of less common items as well as evidence of
higher-level features, such as ‘softening’, e.g. ‘They tend to’, ‘This appears to be’, and ‘might
disagree’. Errors in spelling and word formation are rare. There is also a variety of complex structureswith frequent error-free sentences, though some errors do occur and there is some overuse of rather
short sentence forms.